


Ten Thousand Promises

by Rory_writes



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood and Injury, Fluffy Ending, Other, Song based fic, Tilda Minyard's Death, hospital fic, twinyards, twinyards are angsty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-29
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-03-15 03:41:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29057643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rory_writes/pseuds/Rory_writes
Summary: After being unable to fall asleep, Aaron and Andrew both dream about the night of Tilda's death and when they wake... they have to face the fact that everything's changed since then.Mixtape 2021Song: Powerless by Linkin Park.
Relationships: Aaron Minyard & Andrew Minyard
Comments: 22
Kudos: 42
Collections: AFTG Mixtape Exchange 2021





	Ten Thousand Promises

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AgentCoop](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AgentCoop/gifts).



> I hope you like this lil piece of Twinyard angst <3 
> 
> Also, a really good song (Powerless by Linkin Park), so thank you for introducing it to me <3

Aaron put his head down, putting his cheek on the glossy page of his textbook where it lay on his desk, eyes drooping half-closed as exhaustion fought him for control. It was close to three o’clock in the morning and he’d been reading over a chapter on cardiovascular disease, taking notes and using Kevin’s laptop to further his understanding on the things that didn’t make enough sense. He had ink smudged on his hand and in the corner of his mouth from when he’d tiredly rubbed at his face, and his hair was sticking up in odd angles from frustratedly dragging his fingers through it. His eyes fell closed, almost against his will and sleep dragged at the edges of his consciousness, body sinking heavily into the textbook and the desk even though he was going to wake up in a few hours for training with page creases in his cheek.

He just needed to rest.

Aaron didn’t dream very often, his mind using sleep to stay gloriously blank like it couldn’t be during the day, but that night—well, morning—he dreamed. The dream was a memory, one he tried not to revisit or think about. The night his mom died. The night Andrew had killed her.

***

_“You hid your skeletons when I had shown you mine_

_You woke the devil that I thought you'd left behind_

_I saw the evidence, the crimson soaking through_

_Ten thousand promises, ten thousand ways to lose…”_

***

Aaron walked into the hospital room feeling disconnected from himself. He knew his hands were shaking, he knew his stomach was aching with fear, but he couldn’t think, and he couldn’t feel and he wished more than anything else in the world that he wasn’t actually there.

“M-M-Minyard?” Aaron croaked at the nurse behind the counter. He glanced up with his clipboard, looking at Aaron with a furrowed brow before tapping at a keyboard and scanning the computer screen.

“Andrew Minyard, room two-oh-three. Follow the red line on the floor down the hall, turn left, second room on your left,” he said, pointing with a pen at the floor to demonstrate the red line he was to follow.

“And my mom?” Aaron asked, voice thick. The nurse frowned, looking down at the computer again. “I don’t have her details yet, ask your brother’s attending.”

“Okay,” Aaron said instinctively, but it really wasn’t okay. _Where is Mom? What has Andrew_ done _now?_ Aaron swallowed against the fear in his mouth, dry and desperate and he wished he’d gone home before coming here to take a Valium or a Xanax, or anything that could help him get through this.

“Hey, doppelganger,” Andrew said when Aaron walked into his twin’s sickroom. Andrew was seated on a bed with a very bored look on his badly battered and bruised face, blood crusted around his nose and lips.

“What the fuck have you done?” Aaron asked him, heart sinking into his shoes, frozen in the doorway.

“Shouldn’t you ask me what the fuck she did to you?” Andrew spat back, cradling one arm around his ribs and Aaron winced in sympathy pain. Aaron saw the blood on his shirt next, splattered all over the pale blue fabric that he’d borrowed from Aaron in an attempt to _be_ Aaron. Crimson blood soaked into the shirt and all over Andrew’s arms and throat, and his fucking face. Aaron was going to be sick.

“Where is she?” Aaron asked, coming into the room, and kicking the door shut behind him. “Andrew, where is she?” His voice was shaking and hoarse, but it was clear. Andrew had the audacity to smile, splitting the cut in the corner of his mouth so that fresh blood pooled there.

“Gone,” Andrew said.

“Gone?” Aaron repeated, sinking down onto the end of Andrew’s bed. “You killed her,” he accused, needing Andrew to tell him he’d read it wrong, but when he looked up from the bloody shirt into Andrew’s eyes, he saw the truth.

“Yes,” he said coldly. Aaron’s stomach threatened to upend itself onto the hospital floor in front of him. His twin brother had killed their mother. She was dead. Gone. Aaron felt dizzy. Was he sitting still? Maybe he was standing? Had he fallen? The world in front of him was wobbly, like it was rocking from side to side. Or maybe that was him, he wasn’t sure.

Andrew had come into his life not even all that long ago and over that time he felt like Aaron had bared his soul to his brother. All the skeletons in his closet had tumbled out and sprawled themselves at Andrew’s feet, and all Andrew had done was step over them and continue with his life. Aaron had given everything he had to his brother, and in return he had nothing. He didn’t know Andrew any better now than he had when they met. He knew nothing about his brother or the skeletons that danced behind Andrew’s eyes. All he had was the one big promise worth ten thousand little ones.

_I will protect you when you can’t protect yourself. You just have to stand by me until graduation. Just us. No friends. No girlfriends. I stop you from getting hurt and you don’t leave my fucking side._

Aaron hadn’t realised then what it was he was agreeing to, what he was promising, and what it was he was going to lose…

***

Andrew sighed deeply, carefully pulling the comforter up around Neil’s shoulders and absently running his fingers through his auburn hair. He wasn’t really sure what time it was, but he could guess that it was early hours in the morning. The trio had gotten back from their night practice and Kevin had crash landed in his bunk, asleep before his head hit the pillow with one foot still on the ground, and Neil had climbed into Andrew’s bunk mumbling something about not being capable to use the ladder with his sore arms. Andrew had climbed in after him and Neil curled against Andrew’s side with his face pressed against his neck and his eyelashes tickling his skin. Unlike his roommates, Andrew hadn’t fallen asleep straight away, feeling restless and fidgety and wide awake as the hours ticked down. He knew he was going to suffer through the morning practice and the school day in a couple of hours, but he was already planning on putting his arms around Neil and telling him not to go to night training. Kevin could go on his own and he and Neil could have the dorm to themselves for a few hours. That didn’t really help Andrew fall asleep now, but what was helping was the slow, deep, repetitive rise and fall of Neil’s breathing. He smelled like citrus shampoo and peppermint, and having him safe in his arms was the best way for Andrew to calm his racing thoughts and close his eyes.  
So, Andrew did. He matched his breathing to Neil’s, blocked out the moonlight coming into the room, and let his mind find the blissful blackness and emptiness of sleep. Only, for the first time in a long time, Andrew dreamed and the dream, as they often were for Andrew, was a memory. One he hadn’t revisited in a long time. 

***

_“I watched you fall apart and chased you to the end_

_I'm left with emptiness that words cannot defend_

_You'll never know what I became because of you_

_Ten thousand promises, ten thousand ways to lose…”_

***

Andrew was a murderer. Officially. He had killed someone. His mother actually, not that she’d ever been a mother to Andrew. She’d abandoned him when he was an infant, left him to a life of nightmares and ruined his twin brother in the process. Andrew had come back to a trainwreck of a life that was no worse, and no better, than the life he’d had in the system, to a twin brother just as fucked up and ruined as he was. Only, Andrew had gotten away from his nightmare and his tormentors, and Aaron was stuck with his. Andrew had made his promise to protect Aaron, and so he set his plan in motion. For months it had felt like he was chasing his promise as he watched Aaron fall apart and put himself back together. Fall to pieces and stitch himself back together, all under a hazy fog of chemically induced nothingness. Andrew knew, and had known for a while now, that he would be following Aaron to the end of the world, side by side as they always should have been, but he had to get rid of their mother first.  
So he had.  
Andrew hadn’t expected it to be as easy as it had been. It had taken a few months of planning, but the actual event of grabbing the wheel and turning the car into oncoming traffic had been easy. Aaron’s mother had looked so surprised before her face disappeared into the grate of a truck. Andrew had escaped with a nose bleed, three broken ribs, a fractured wrist and more bruises than skin, although half of those he’d already had because of the beating Tilda had given him beforehand.

He sat on the hospital bed, having refused to wear a gown or lie down, but he’d had x-rays and was now bandaged around his torso and there was a cast under the sleeve of Aaron’s bloodied blue shirt. And although they’d cleaned his face, he’d already bled around his mouth and from nose since the attending nurse had left. He didn’t really care. Andrew felt an all consuming nothingness. A numbness that went deep to the marrow of his bones. An emptiness that he couldn’t explain, and if someone had asked how he could feel so calm after killing someone, he wouldn’t have been able to defend himself. You aren’t supposed to feel okay after you kill someone. 

“Hey, doppelganger,” he said when Aaron came into the room, white as a sheet. 

“What the fuck have you done?” Aaron accused in reply, making Andrew’s stomach curdle in anger, the first thing he’d felt in hours.

“Shouldn’t you ask me what the fuck she did to you?” He snarled, cradling one arm around his ribs to show Aaron the extent of his mother’s abuse when she’d thought he was Aaron, and also because they ached just a little when he spoke, apparently. 

“Where is she?” Aaron asked with a small, croaky voice as he came into the room and the door was kicked shut. “Andrew, where is she?” He sounded so pathetic and young. Andrew wanted to shake him. She was dead. Tilda couldn’t hurt him anymore. Andrew smiled, cold and fierce, splitting his lip a little more. 

“Gone,” he answered.

“Gone?” Aaron repeated dumbly, sinking down onto the end of Andrew’s bed as if his world had just fallen out from under him. “You killed her.” The accusation sounded more like a plea for him to be wrong.

“Yes,” he said coldly when Aaron turned his eyes to him, looking for the truth. Those eyes were so similar, the same as Andrew’s, but Andrew knew his hadn’t looked as pathetically wounded since he’d been a small child. Aaron had no right to look like that. To be looking at Andrew like he’d just ruined his life. Aaron had no idea what Andrew had become in order to keep his promise. _A murderer._ Andrew was a real murderer. And Aaron was devastated. He was going to grieve. He was heartbroken for the woman who had beaten him daily, gotten him addicted to drugs, and all but ruined his life. Andrew had been trying to help him. To protect him. To keep the promise. 

_I will protect you when you can’t protect yourself. You just have to stand by me until graduation. Just us. No friends. No girlfriends. I stop you from getting hurt and you don’t leave my fucking side._

Andrew hadn’t expected that look on Aaron’s face. The anger and hurt and horror. He’d promised this for his brother, and at the same time… he’d lost him. 

***

When Andrew woke up to Kevin’s and Neil’s alarms going off at the same time-- a fact that greatly annoyed Andrew every morning-- he punched Neil’s alarm off and glared at Kevin until he turned his own off with sluggish, sleepy movements. Neil mumbled a good morning, kissed the corner of Andrew’s mouth, and rolled over Andrew and off the bed to get ready for the day. Andrew followed, moving a little slower, and went into the kitchen to make coffee for himself and his roommates as he did every morning. He left two mugs on the counter and took the third to Kevin, threatening to leave him behind when they left for training, and when that didn’t work he threatened to pour some of the scalding liquid on his face. That got Kevin at least sitting up, because he actually had followed through on that threat before. Andrew and Neil commandeered the bathroom after that to change for practice and brush their teeth, leaving Kevin to drag himself through the process of waking up and getting changed. When they left the bathroom, he was sitting on the floor near the door with his takeaway mug in his hands and staring at his shoes as if they were going to climb onto his feet themselves.  
“We’re leaving,” Neil said, swiping his own mug from the counter, handing Andrew his. Kevin just groaned in response and reached for his shoes defeatedly. 

“I hate you,” Andrew told him, shaking his head. Neil snorted and leaned his back against the counter to wait, and Andrew went back around the counter for another mug and poured the last of the coffee into it with some milk and a singular, lone teaspoon of sugar. Aaron only had one sugar in his coffee in the morning and then no sugars at any other point of the day, which was gross in Andrew’s opinion, but after the dream-- the memory--he felt the prickly sensation to _protect_ clawing under his skin. 

“Where are you going?” Neil asked with a knowing smile. Andrew shot him an unimpressed look, but his boyfriend just leaned his elbows on the counter and rested his chin in his palms. 

“Bite me,” Andrew muttered, lidding the second mug. 

“Later,” Neil promised, and Andrew _nearly_ fumbled the hot drinks in his fluster before shooting a glare at him. Neil’s smile was small and Andrew kissed him quickly before heading to the door. 

“Make sure he is in the car in fifteen minutes, and bring your keys, I do not have mine,” Andrew instructed. Neil smirked and mocked Andrew with a two finger salute before the door shut between them. He nearly walked directly into Nicky and he instinctively put his hand up and pushed his cousin back a step, lucky that the mug had a lid or he would have poured it right down his practice shirt. 

“Oh! Andrew! I was, um, coming to get you!” Nicky said with a nervous smile. 

“Why?” He asked. 

“Aaron… he isn’t getting up,” Nicky answered, bouncing on the balls of his feet with nervous energy. Andrew didn’t respond, just stalked around his cousin to the room across the hall and pushed it open without knocking. Aaron had his head down on his desk, eyes scrunched closed, and Matt was standing in the kitchen sipping from his coffee with a concerned look on his face as he eyed Aaron and his textbook pillow. Matt glanced over at Andrew and held his hands up in surrender at whatever he saw on his face and followed Nicky down to the bedroom and closed the door. Andrew went over to his twin and put the mug down on the table before poking him in the ribs and waiting. Aaron made an unimpressed sound and flickered one accusatory eye open. 

“They did tell me they’d go and get you, but I didn’t think you’d actually come,” Aaron muttered, wiping the corner of his mouth with his wrist. Andrew tapped the lid of the mug in front of him and sat down on his desk. 

“I was already on my way over,” he said. 

“Why?” Aaron asked warily, picking up the mug and sniffing it suspiciously. Andrew would have taken a mouthful to prove he hadn’t tampered with it, but it was too bitter for him with one sugar and that would prove nothing. 

“Because,” he said instead. Aaron rolled his eyes and drank some of the coffee. “Are you not coming to practice?” 

“I didn’t sleep enough,” Aaron replied, before something complicated crossed across his features. “I had a bad dream.” 

“As did I,” Andrew agreed quietly. Aaron’s eyes flicked up to him, searching his face for the truth like they had in the dream, but this time he didn’t look so wounded and pathetic. He just looked curious and questioning. 

“What was your dream?” Aaron asked eventually. Andrew scratched his cheek with the bottom of his mug, considering his answer. 

“Tilda,” he said simply. Aaron winced, but Andrew saw the flicker of surprise on his face. 

“Same.” 

“Yeah,” Andrew replied. Aaron stretched his arms over his head, studying Andrew for a moment before shaking his head slowly. Andrew waited for some shitty, broken hearted sentence, putting his guards up to protect himself from it. 

“Out of you and mom,” he began, tone a little bitter and eyes bright and honest. “I’m glad it was you who survived the crash.” Aaron stood from his chair after that, leaving Andrew reeling. He had a barrier against comments designed to hurt, but he hadn’t been ready to protect himself from that. 

“You can’t say things like that outside of a session with Betsy,” he muttered. Aaron’s lips curled in a smile around the mug of the coffee. 

“Give me a ride to practice?” Aaron asked. 

“Like every day,” Andrew replied. “Down in five,” he added, getting up from the table and leaving the dorm. He leaned his back on the wall beside the door, eyes closed for a long moment. 

Andrew hadn’t considered the fact that Aaron would ever be grateful to have him in his life, but being faced with that truth felt a little like Andrew’s life had been tilted. All of the barriers, the guards, the angry and defiant walls felt like they were tumbling down just a little bit. It was almost careless for Aaron to have dropped that on him like that. 

Andrew had never before felt so _powerless._ He’d never before thought he’d… be okay with feeling like this. 

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on Tumblr (@andrew-is-foxy) and TikTok (@rory_reads)!
> 
> Thanks for reading, please comment and kudos <3


End file.
